


Segue

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Drama, Humor, M/M, Other: See Story Notes, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 00:10:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three mildly related musings on hypersensitivity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Segue

**Author's Note:**

> Segue = transition, esp. in music. Be warned, there is blood, there is lots of science, and unusual style. Run now if you fear it. You probably do. Deepest gratitude to Meg and my beta Kimberly for their kindness to me during the creative phase. 

## Segue

by Spyke

Author's webpage: <http://www.geocities.com/spyke_raven>

Author's disclaimer: Jim and Blair are not mine and I make no money from them. 

* * *

Prelude. 

He called himself the Rat, or Ratty for preference, and smirked through dark glasses and scrabbling squeaks. He wore a brown leather jacket, scuffed black jeans that may have been blue once and he didn't pretend to be tougher than he was. He was tough enough to survive on these streets and that was all that mattered. 

His corner was in a subway tunnel, one of the old dark wormholes that went on into forever and was said to be haunted. He had a box with papers and scraps of cloth and a couple of empty bottles that he kept for the glass. This had been his place for as long as he wanted to remember. Then Mole came up out of the tunnels. 

Let's talk about Mole. Mole was short, probably skeletal beneath the layers and layers of clothes he wore. His feet and hands were wrapped in filthy bandages encrusted with ooze and the sludge that grows at the bottom of tunnels. His clothes flapped as he walked and occasionally big tears in the fabric revealed deeper and darker layers inside. 

His skin was black, but that could have been dirt. He wore dark glasses, two pieces of smoked glass hooked into a frame that he looped over his ears. He didn't speak and only let out a whimper when Rat head-butted him in the stomach for invasion of privacy. Rat liked using certain words when he could; they tasted nice in his mouth. 

Mole didn't speak, just crumpled into a heap and shook his head slowly. He didn't flinch when Rat stepped over to him, fists clenched and ready, only put out a trembling hand and felt for the wall to lever himself up. 

What actually stopped Rat from beating the shit out of the intruder was the careful way Mole lifted himself upright and shuffled around the Rat, one hand anchored on the tunnel wall, the other palm out as if to say 'wait'. 

So Rat waited until Mole moved away from him into the opposite corner, as far away from Rat's place as possible. Then he walked over and kindly asked the newcomer why Rat shouldn't just beat the shit out of him anyway. 

Mole just shook his head at him again and curled up in his corner deaf to all the Rat's curses and even the two kicks Rat half-heartedly aimed at him. 

So Rat deliberately yanked the Mole's glasses from his face and ground them under his feet. Mole's face didn't look much different without the wire loops, his eyes still scrunched tight as if he were afraid to see what might happen next. After a while, Rat stopped and went back to his own place, keeping the bottles within easy reach. 

In the morning, Mole was still huddled in his corner, face blank, hands twisted together, eyes closed. Rat couldn't explain why he did what he did next, which was to take the shades off his own face and settle them gently on the Mole's nose. 

Mole looked up at that, face twisting for one second into a tiny grimace before returning to the unmoving, blank faced straight-ahead stare. When Rat came back from the day's dealing, Mole was still in the same position and for all the Rat knew, dead. So, again moved by some impulse, Rat placed half his hamburger in front of the Mole and watched until the Mole ate it. 

Six nights later they were sharing a corner, Mole pressed into the taller boy's back for warmth and comfort. 

Mole never spoke, rarely moved and ate what Rat fed him. When Rat was out for the day, he'd return to find the Mole either lying motionless in their nest or sitting straight up, in some strange form of meditation that only broke once Rat entered the tunnel. Once Rat was home, Mole might get up and shuffle around him, one hand on the wall for balance, other clenched to his chest as if to prevent it reaching out towards the Rat. 

Rat touched his hand once, but Mole whimpered and drew it back instantly, wrapping it in folds of cloth. After that, Rat never touched Mole again unless the other boy initiated the contact. 

Mole might have been ten or a hundred years old. It didn't matter to Rat. What mattered was that Mole was his, his in a way nothing had ever been his before. Mole needed him, needed his food, his body for comfort and seemed to relax when Rat spoke to him, which became very often, since Rat found he liked being able to tell his stories to an appreciatively silent audience. 

They were good for each other. Rat was careful now in his dealings, never snorting, just delivering, taking his money and running. He had a responsibility to stay alive and began looking for outs, whatever was available to the dregs of the street looking to climb upward. 

They were together a month. 

One day Rat came home and found the Mole curled up in their box, hands over eyes. When Rat spoke, Mole shivered, but uncovered his eyes rather than let Rat touch them. 

The glasses were off, layers of sweat and dirt barely obscuring the fact that Mole was bleeding. 

Mole bled through his eyes, their delicate structure shattered, imploded as a result of enhanced light sensitivity, terms Rat didn't know or care to as he squatted with arms wrapped around himself, understanding or not that Mole bled. 

After minutes or an hour, Mole reached out and touched Rat's face. The older boy relaxed, his body giving into a calm sigh as he arranged the Mole carefully in their nest, touching him through layers of fabric, quietly asking him to wait. 

Then Rat shattered his empty bottles and used the glass on his own wrists before coming back to press against the Mole as Mole had lain against him so many few nights, holding his friend and rocking them both gently so they could finally sleep. 

* * *

2\. Segue. 

"...In all cases that have come to our attention over the last thirty years, heightened sensory perception has been accompanied by one or more fatal genetic flaws. We call this the rule of compensation hypothesis, a mechanism by which natural selection ensures the reproductive survival of only those individuals possessing characteristics that fall into the middle of any distribution curve." 

Click! 

"Case in point: note the swelling of the visual cortex and the number of dendritic processes that form secondary conduits parallel to the optic nerve. The fatal flaw here was Martin's enhanced sensitivity to electromagnetic radiation of almost all wavelengths. When we found our missing truant, he had already bled to death through his eyes." 

Oblivious to the gory images onscreen, the woman behind the lectern put her laser pointer down, removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes tiredly. "I have reviewed the security report on the situation and am assured that the random combination of factors that allowed the boy to escape are statistically unlikely to occur before the next millennium." She paused and looked at her watch. "I believe we can wait a thousand years." 

Nervous grins ran through the audience as she replaced her glasses. 

"Most of the subjects we examine at the Center are children, children brought to our attention because the doctor in question notices something unusual as early as amniocentesis, if we are lucky, and as late as a few days before the child dies of hyper-stimulation if we are not. None of these children have survived beyond puberty, the conflicting demands of hormonal stimulus and spiking sensory reactions being beyond their body's capacity to handle." 

"Next slide please." 

Click! 

"I'm certain that all of you present in this room recognize this clipping since it is, in fact, the reason I am giving this presentation. To recapitulate, fourteen months ago, our Center was rocked by the published findings of one Blair Sandburg, who claimed he had discovered a Sentinel, a fully functional adult human being with the ability to control his sensory perceptions to an unimaginably precise degree. We did not take either his claim or subsequent retraction lightly and decided to conduct our own investigation into the matter." 

Click! 

"This is a summary of the case notes dealing with our subject, all of which were kindly offered to us by our contacts in Cascade General. In 1996 Detective James Ellison of the Cascade P.D. checked himself into the hospital, complaining of disorientation accompanied by random hyper-reactivity to oral and olfactory stimuli. Dr. McCoy, who unfortunately cannot be with us today, conducted a complete examination and found no evidence of physical or mental pathology. Thanks to his foresight in obtaining complete encephalograms, we do however have the earliest records of Detective Ellison's responses to olfactory stimulus - the spikes in activity concentrate in the hippocampus, known to be the region responsible for smell/scent reaction. The spikes also follow a pattern corresponding exponentially to the decrease in applied stimulus. The plateaus following immediately after the spikes, we hypothesize as resulting from the body's compensatory mechanism. In other words, a resting period of milliseconds appears to be required before the subject forces his response to the next level. Please note that for certain of the substances tested, Detective Ellison was reportedly able to respond to dosages as low as one-thousandth of a milligram." 

Click! 

"With the written consent of the subject, Dr. McCoy also isolated skin and mucosal scrapings, some of which he made immediately available to us for cell culture and further testing. The skin regenerated easily and under the influence of mildly neurotrophic hormones, actually formed structures mimicking nerve clusters or ganglions. For the laymen here, I'd like to emphasize that this is a phenomenon worthy of years' study in itself." 

Click! 

"Whether this regenerative process is exhibited _in vivo_ , in the subject himself, is easily extrapolated from the fact that Detective Ellison has been admitted to Cascade General for various reasons over the last seven years and has always returned to active duty, fitness unimpaired despite direct bullet wounds to soft tissue. We were also informed that in 1997, Detective Ellison was exposed to the lethal drug Golden, but apparently there were and have been no indications of seizures or a deterioration of mental processes. A reliable source indicates that Detective Ellison _was_ temporarily blinded at the time, and we hypothesize his survival could be as a result of the exposed tissue being sequestered until the chemical was excreted from his system." 

Click! 

"Since Detective Ellison is also listed as a bone marrow donor, we managed to obtain undifferentiated tissue samples for study. The cells divided actively, frequently and some even immortalized in culture without losing the ability to differentiate into lymphatic tissue. These are not results we can easily explain without further investigations into the person of James Ellison, and I do mean invasive procedures." 

She sighed unconsciously. "It is my understanding, that we are here, in effect, to sit in council and decide what further action should be taken, action that I understand -" she held up her hand to forestall comments from a well decorated man seated in the first row, "I understand is pre-emptive and necessary to the safety of our country's government." 

She wondered how many people would notice that she did not say 'country.' 

"I would like at this point to emphasize that if it had not been for the press conference held by Blair Sandburg in 1999 in order to retract his thesis, pre-emptive measures might indeed be necessary. Thanks to his prompt action however, apart from Mr. Sandburg and Detective Ellison, the only people in the world who are aware of the validity of Mr. Sandburg's research sit in this council." 

She surveyed her audience. 

"As for Detective Ellison being used against his nation or compatriots \- with all due respect to persons in this room, the very notion is bullshit. For one, this team completely accepts the findings of Mr. Sandburg and he states very clearly that men such as Detective Ellison have a genetic imperative to protect and serve those of their 'tribe', a theory proven conclusively in this team's opinion by his past military service and present career in the police department." She paused for emphasis. "We have his loyalty, gentlemen. I would suggest we do nothing to upset the status quo." 

"So much for Detective Ellison's willing co-operation. As for unwilling...let's be honest, ladies and gentlemen. Some of you are surely thinking in terms of 'selective breeding' and Aryan supremacy, wondering if Detective Ellison, as a fully viable adult male may not be of tremendous value to certain organizations." 

"There is just one problem. Detective Ellison isn't exactly the exception to our hypothesized rule of compensation - you see, he is completely sterile." 

She hid a smile, savoring the growing sense of unease percolating through the room. Her next words were projected to carry with or without benefit of the microphone clipped onto her collar. 

"Detective Ellison was married, is currently divorced, and in the two year course of his marriage, paid several visits to an infertility clinic." 

Click! 

"The results of the investigation revealed an abnormally low sperm count, with surviving sperm possessing little or no DNA for fertilization." 

Click! 

"As for genetic analyses: we performed karyotypes and compared the chromosomes of a 'normal' adult Caucasian male with the DNA extracted from Detective Ellison's tissue. There is no visible difference at the genetic level, apart from normal intra-species variation. Restriction digestion and hybridization indicate that certain regions, notably 13q and 5a contain multiple copies of DNA sequences that we are in the process of isolating and analyzing. So far they appear to be novel genes, transgenic factors and in some cases, structural junk sequences." 

Click! 

"Detective Ellison has no children, nor is he likely to. His closest male relatives are his father, William Ellison and brother Steven. Steven, who, I must add, shows no signs of similar hypersensitivity, is also listed as a marrow donor and it is his tissue that we subjected to similar tests -" 

Click! 

"Detective Ellison's test results are on the left. Again, there is no difference at the chromosomal level, however Steven Ellison lacks the novel gene sequences that are present in Detective Ellison's DNA." 

Click! 

The screen went blank, lights focusing on the tired woman who surveyed her audience unappreciatively. 

"I am no fool, ladies and gentlemen, and neither is my team. Most of us have been in this project for nearly thirty years, and I personally have been Director of this Center for twenty of these. Please bear this in mind while listening to what I have to say." 

Would they? 

"Detective Ellison is first and foremost a hardworking individual and a good man. The fact that he is also a unique genetic sport should not be held against him, since there is no conjectured way he could be used against us. And believe me when I say my colleagues and I have done nothing but conjecture." 

She thought she saw her husband smile from his vantage point at the end of the room. 

"There is no doubt Detective Ellison is working to the best of his skills and capability. He does his job and I strongly recommend we do the same. Let us leave well enough alone and concentrate on trying to do some good for the children we bring to our Center. I'll take questions now, please." 

There were questions, there were answers and it was a full three hours later before Doctor Ayrman, exhausted and pale, stepped out of the conference room heading straight into the waiting arms of her husband, who kissed her cheek and squeezed her hand, but very wisely said nothing until they were at home, brushing their teeth, the running tap serving as a protective screen. 

Then he asked, "Is James Ellison really sterile?" 

She grinned. "No. But you and I are the only ones who know this. He IS in a stable relationship with another man and quite unlikely to reproduce. Steven's children on the other hand..." she trailed off, eyes empty, remembering her own record of miscarriages and stillbirths, remembering the painful delirium of holding her sons for the few years before the new hormones coursing through her blood triggered her own development, remembering William; father of her sons and a good, good man who did his best, just as she had to protect their own... remembering the sight of her poor little Martin wrapped in a teenager's arms, their combined blood staining the tunnel floor... 

She closed her eyes as her husband took her hand and told her what she needed to hear, "They'll be safe. The children will be safe. You've protected them this long; you've always done your best for them. You're doing your best to protect them all. You _will_ keep them safe." 

His own conviction burned, lending strength to his voice and for a while, it was enough that he believed. So Grace Ayrman, who was once Ellison, rested her head on her husband's shoulder; her heart beating in rhythm to the one voice that never failed to soothe her, as she tried, for a while, just tried to forget. 

* * *

3\. Dissonance. 

"Remember me, buddy? Your good friend Blair? Come on, sure you do - and I don't buy that 'sold out' thing you got going there for a minute." 

Jim wasn't sure what worried him more, the fact that he had a partner who talked to vending machines, or the fact that the coffee actually tasted better after Blair did. Of course it was a toss up between whether it was the machine responding to the harmonic vibrations of Blair's voice, or Jim's taste buds ditto. 

When had he started using phrases like 'harmonic vibrations' anyway? 

Jim shook his head; glad they were alone in the building and hoping Blair wouldn't notice he'd sneaked up behind him. Megan assured him the show was a hoot. 

"Now let's discuss this calmly and rationally," Blair said, oblivious to his audience, running his hands soothingly over the plastic front of the vending machine. "You may think you're all tapped out here, that you don't need my money, but the truth is? Our needs coincide and well, I need you to take my money and let me get my drink. Please? A little favor?" 

The coin remained obstinately poised. 

Jim grinned as Blair leaned his forehead against the door and whispered, "Look, I don't know what you heard about the accident, but that was five years ago! I don't make a habit of abusing guys like you, and anyway, that snack machine? He saved the lives of millions, well, at least the life of me and while I'm sure he may regret that now, I must, I have to have. That. Coffee." 

Jim circled a forefinger around his temple, sadly mouthing, 'Cuckoo.' Which was when he realized he was talking to empty air and decided to shut up in case it agreed with him. 

Blair paused in his ministrations, breathing a little heavily. "Right. Now I know I have a bad reputation among your kind, no, no I know you guys talk, otherwise why does the phone always go off when I'm in the shower...but that is besides the point. Okay, while I might have been guilty of a mild form of abuse, toppling your friend there over onto a known criminal without asking, and our first meeting too, but hear me out here? We've all been through a lot together, haven't we? We're part of a team, or so I like to think... and you!" Pointing a finger at the calmly glowing snack machine, "Aren't you at least the tiniest bit proud of stopping an act of terrorism? Of saving all those lives? Can we please move on? I can't keep going all the way over to Homicide and using their machine, and Simon will strangle me if I sneak into his office and borrow his coffee maker. Besides which we're out of beans. Please. Talk to me. You're my only hope." His fingers moved seductively across the front, pressing his offering in. 

The coin dropped. Lights blinked as the machine shook with the slow whoosh of caffeine mixing. 

Jim blinked. If he hadn't seen it... 

"Thank you!" Blair retrieved his drink swiftly and paused. "No change?" 

The lights went off and he sighed. "Fine. Okay, I get it. But I got to tell you, buddy, I'm feeling a lot of negativity here." 

A second cup dropped and filled carefully. Blair smiled. "Aw... man, I should have known better. I'm so sorry, here, thank you, let me get that." Coins plinked into the change slot. "Bless you, Jim would have killed me if I hadn't given him a cup and I would have killed myself without one, so you know what, you just did a very, very good deed here." He cuffed the machine lightly before turning around. "I'll see you later, all right? No hard feelings? Think we made a lot of progress tonight. Jim!" 

"Blair." Jim took the cup and nodded in the direction of the machine. "Why do you always do that?" 

Blair put a finger to his lips and ushered his partner out before nodding solemnly. "It releases stress and besides, well, I kind of owe them, you know?" 

"But that isn't even the original vending machine, for Christ's sake...we had to bring in a new one." 

Blair shrugged. "So? You saw it, didn't you? Something responded. Besides which, I'd like to balance my karma in this birth." 

No, the thing that actually had Jim worried was that Blair spoke of things like balancing his karma and living several births in the same breath as interacting with vending machines. 

"You think machines have souls?" he asked as they settled down for another hour of filling paperwork. 

Blair's lips quirked as he leaned across Jim to grab a pen. "Maybe." 

"Next time just ask me," Jim said agreeably, though he wasn't exactly averse to Sandburg leaning all over him. "That doesn't have any ink in it anyway," flipping him a new one. 

"Thank you. Actually, what I do believe is that everything we do, action or reaction, has far-reaching consequences. It doesn't matter if the machine has a soul or not, what matters is that I shouldn't forget that I used it, or something like it to knock a guy out on my first day in the PD." 

"Why not?" 

"Because it has meaning, you know? A sort of balance... see, five years ago I was in this same room pretending to be a cop and now, look at me." 

"And you owe it all to a vending machine." Jim mocked lightly, turning the chair back to his half of the desk. 

"Actually, I owe it all to you." 

Jim spilled coffee all over the front of his shirt. 

Between mopping it off the paperwork and growling at Sandburg for something that really wasn't his fault he effectively managed to table their little conversation until they were in the truck on their way home. They'd given up taking two cars to work. 

Blair drummed thoughtfully on the window as Jim glowered, wondering about karmic balance and the consequences of actions. 

"I'm not a mind-reader," Blair said gently, breaking in on his reverie. 

"Yeah." 

Blair waited. 

Jim gave in. "Look, I know you want this. It's just that I also know you were kind of hoping for your doctorate too." 

"Hey," Blair agreed. "Well, yeah at one time, maybe. But you know, I got to thinking, what's the point of the letters PhD anyway, huh? They specify that I've made some valuable contribution to the world, that I found and delivered something of importance. And I did, and I know it." He nudged Jim, grinning. "Hey, _you_ know it. Anyone of any importance to me knows it. So - big deal, I can live without the cap and gown. How many times have we had this conversation anyway?" 

Jim grimaced and they were silent on the rest of their way back to the loft. 

Only as Blair puttered around the kitchen, boiling water and mixing pinches of herbs to form their pre-slumber infusion, Jim found himself powering up the computer and reading through the documents folder, noting again that the 'dissertation' directory had been painstakingly renamed 'Sensory'. The files were all there, Blair assured him, just... renamed for protection. 

Protection from what? Secret government agencies? The X-Files Consortium maybe? 

Jim snorted. 

Sandburg was the laughingstock of the academic world and even if Jim wrote and published 'I was a teenage Sentinel' under his own name no one would believe it now. 

And the truth was, Jim decided, sometimes it bugged him. It bugged him that Blair had had to fight hard to win the respect of every officer outside Major Crimes, that there were people who looked on him, James Ellison, as a saint who'd reclaimed the darkness that was Blair Sandburg. It bugged him that he still got messages from [alt.tv.newsgroups.paranoid](http://alt.tv.newsgroups.paranoid)/ telling him that they believed, that they knew why he had to hide who he was, but that when he led the revolution against evil he'd find them armed and ready. Blair laughed, but it bugged the hell out of Jim that the only people in the world who believed the truth were stark raving lunatics themselves. 

One stark raving lunatic handed Jim a cup of rose-hip tea and sat down on the couch to drink his own. 

"You look tense," Blair remarked. 

Jim hit shutdown, rose and moved to the balcony. 

"You are tense," said Blair, mildly sipping tea. "Ah, hell," he put his cup down on the table, a coaster underneath, Jim noted sardonically, before coming out. 

"Wanna tell me what this is about?" 

Jim sighed, realizing that Blair's breathing patterns had changed, slowed in a sub-conscious effort to influence Jim's own. 

As usual, it worked. 

Seven breaths later, Jim flexed his hand and gripped the railing. "I guess I just don't like the idea that this - us - this thing we have -" 

"Say the word, Jim." Blair grinned. "Re-la-tion-ship. You can say it, come on, say it," cuffing Jim's shoulder. 

"Relationship," Jim huffed, trying to hide the grin. "Sometimes I get the idea that this relationship is you know, your way of redressing your karmic balance towards me or something. Hell, I know it's idiotic, it's practically a Sandburg-sized stupid idea," 

"Which is small compared to Ellison sized of course, but go on, insult the short guy. Just remember the wise old saying, when his head is two feet above yours, his groin is level with your teeth." 

Jim threw his head back and laughed, eyeing Blair's mouth with a sudden new interest. Blair shook his head affectionately. 

"No. Spill now, groin later." He paused. "Spill then, too." 

"You are a disgusting man, Sandburg," Jim ruffled his hair affectionately. "Makes me wonder what I did to deserve you." 

"Something really, really nice in a past birth, obviously." Blair bumped Jim's shoulder. "You're not getting away with this. Complete the confession." 

Jim pursed his lips. "You're not just sticking with me because you saved my life once and so now you're my Blessed Protector and responsible for me, are you?" 

Blair groaned and slapped his forehead theatrically. "You know what, Jim? You ARE an idiot. Why not just ask me if I'm using sex to buy your forgiveness?" 

"Actually that was my next -" 

"You. You are so DEAD! You are dead if you open your mouth and say it, you are dead if you look at me like that and you are so in the doghouse dead I wouldn't be laughing if I were you. Dead, dead, DEAD!" 

"Not saying anything." 

"I heard that! Why are you so - so sensitive, man? The weirdest things seem to set you off - I cut my hair and you fall all over the loft trying to please me. Not that I minded a new lamp, it's just - you know, you have guilt here. You're far too, um, far too touchy. And I'm not talking your little Sentinel thingy here when I say A-grade Ellison sized," 

"My Sentinel-thingy is little?" 

"Shut up," swatting Jim's hands away. "BIG sized touchy-feely. Touchy, touchy, touchy." 

"I get the picture." 

"No, no. You started this; you're going to let me have my moment. And I want you to know that I am very serious here. Very, very serious. Muy seriouso." Blair ticked off the points on his fingers. "There is to be no guilt. I like the fact that I'm your partner, hey I _love_ the fact that I'm your _partner_. You can stop beating yourself over the head because my life is _great_ and there's nothing you can do about it. Comprende?" 

"Comprende." Jim's smile went a little lop-sided. "But then you settle your karmic balance by apologizing to the ghosts of vending machines." 

"Jesus. Come back in." 

"Why?" Jim followed the tug on his arm anyway. 

"Because I need to think, so we're going to cuddle." 

Blair led Jim back in and positioned them both on the couch, Blair sitting, Jim half reclining, head in Blair's lap. Jim twisted, trying to find the most comfortable angle. Blair petted him absently through his search for the perfect contortion. 

"Found it," Jim grunted, satisfied. 

"Hmm. You know, you're pretty insecure for a macho cop with a shoulder holster." 

"Don't tell the precinct. They think I'm the butch one." 

"You are," patting Jim's cheek affectionately. "Just, sometimes you get mushy." 

"And whose fault is that?" 

"Precisely." 

"Huh?" 

"I'm not the only one who's had to go through a life-changing experience here. Listen to you, you're sharing your feelings for crying out loud." 

"Huh." Jim stared up at his partner's face. "Christ. I _am_ gay." 

Blair grinned. "Does that bother you?" 

Jim considered this for a while. "Actually, it bothers me that you put a coaster under that cup." 

Blair looked at the cup and back at Jim. "Uh, Jim, I think we took a turn into Never-never land ... unless - nah, you're not saying that being with me has turned you into a slob are you?" He peered down suspiciously. " _Are_ you? Because come to think of it, you haven't even changed out of this shirt and it has coffee stains all over it." 

Jim chuckled. "What I meant was that it bothered me that you do things for me all the time and," he paused. "Can we hold this conversation, Chief? I need to start a load of laundry." 

Blair rolled his eyes heavenwards but decided that laundry was a good idea. And between helping Jim get his clothes off - shirt, pants, underwear, hell by the time they were done _everything_ needed a wash - and running the machine, and finding new clothes to put on and deciding naked might be more fun, it was 1 am and they were loosely entwined on the bed upstairs with Blair demonstrating to Jim the finer points of action and reaction. 

Several baby-wipes later, Jim listened to the rise and fall of Blair's heartbeat, enjoying the feel of Blair's head pillowed on his chest. 

"You have got to stop feeling guilty, you know," Blair whispered. "It pisses me off." 

Jim grinned. "If that's what happens when you're pissed off," 

"No, no, no." Blair raised himself on one elbow, easily avoiding Jim's attempts to pull him back, "No, I'm serious. Life's about moving forward, okay, about taking your choices and running with them. Forward, or backward, but jogging in one place is stupid and a complete waste of energy. Read Lewis Carroll. He was a mathematician and said so too." 

Jim looked up at Blair, cataloguing the features illuminated by moonlight, realizing with a certain form of dull shock that the planes of his lover's face were distinctly masculine, little bristles of hair already beginning to poke their way through the skin. Then Blair leaned down and kissed him and he found he liked the feeling of little spikes of pain, that he was opening himself to them because it was a completely wonderful form of sensory torture when it came from Blair. 

This time when Jim reached up and drew Blair back into his arms, Blair didn't resist. 

"If I hadn't found you, I'd be dead now," Jim said softly. "Where would you be?" 

Blair shrugged. "Honestly? Dead in every way that counts." 

Jim stroked down the contours of Blair's back, circling the area around the hip. "Karmic balance again?" 

"Hmm ...never really thought of myself as a fatalist, but there's something kind of right in the idea that maybe we were meant to meet, you know? Maybe some genetic or biological imperative, maybe my pheromones called to you..." 

"Who's being mushy now?" Jim teased, wondering if he should tell Blair about the way he'd latched onto Sandburg scent right from the first time they met or maybe he should save it for some other time. 

"Geez, can't even get a little romantic with you." 

"Sure you can," bending down to kiss Blair's neck. Blair sighed and went boneless and for a while Jim hoped they'd be able to leave it at that. 

But sometimes Sandburg was like a dog, and not in a good way either. "You know, there are thousands of people who you must've influenced in the course of living your life, of just being you, and with or without your knowledge their own actions may have changed the way you live. Should that bother you?" 

"Now that you put it that way, maybe - Ow!" as Blair punched him in the chest. "I'm guessing that was the wrong answer?" 

Blair rubbed the sore place gently. "Actually, um, no, not completely. In a way it's like talking to the vending machine, about trying to remember as many of the stops on the journey as possible. But Jim, I do it for fun, man, and out of respect, respect for _me_ , for who and what I used to be and for the things that brought me here. Not for guilt. Because this is who I am now, and sometimes I like to remember who I used to be, but the important thing is, I was - I always am me." 

"I'll try to remember that." 

"Make sure you do," Blair yawned, snuggling into Jim. "'Cause my words 're all getting mixed up. 'S late. Sleep." 

Jim stayed awake for a while, feeling the gentle vibrations as Blair snored his way into alpha rhythm, thinking, just thinking about people and actions and remembering who you really are. 

So the next day he did something he hadn't done in a very long time. He called his father, just to talk and had a long conversation that ended in mutual dinner invitations and promises to meet over the weekend. Before he hung up, he also did something he'd promised himself never to do again, and asked about his mother. 

After a long, very long pause, when Jim held on grimly, willing himself to wait, William Ellison finally gave him the answer. 

It wasn't the answer Jim had been expecting and if he hadn't been shocked by the words, he might have picked up on the accelerating heartbeat and slight vibrato that indicated his father was lying about the death of his ex-wife. 

Or not. William had always been good at protecting what he loved, regardless of the cost to himself or others. 

It was after all, a hereditary trait. 

~ End. 

Whatever you're thinking right now - yes. Or no. ::grin:: Talk to me. Personally I'm completely unsure if I just started a novel or throttled one at birth. I lean towards the latter. For those who need a glossary, '[www.dictionary.com](http://www.dictionary.com/)' is cool. ** 


End file.
